The Burlingame City Council set the wheels in movement this week to reestablish a bike share program within the metropolis, with councilmembers indicating their assist for bringing rentable electrical bikes to city areas as a handy transportation various.
“I’m excited about the opportunity to bring some micromobility options back to the city,” stated Councilmember Emily Beach. “The transportation sector is our biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and also contributes to congestion on our streets with more cars.”
Bike and scooter share applications, collectively known as micromobility sharing, enable short-term app-based leases for fast journeys. They may complement public transit, filling the hole between a station and one’s ultimate vacation spot.
Such providers had been popularized within the early 2010s, however in recent times amid rising laws, company restructuring and assorted ridership, all of them however vanished from the Peninsula. Burlingame beforehand hosted a short-lived bike share program that was minimize brief in 2019, simply greater than a yr after its inception, after operator Lime discontinued bikes as a part of its service.
Marking a modest comeback, a hotel-based bike share program was began in Burlingame earlier this yr with not less than 5 docking stations positioned close to Bayfront lodges. The council is now wanting to set up tips to bring in one other operator for broader service all through town, and in accordance to sustainability coordinator Sigalle Michael, micromobility operator Bird has already expressed curiosity.
While Bird is understood for its electrical scooters, final yr the corporate unveiled plans to broaden its providers to bikes with an electrical help up to 15 mph.
Citing security issues, the council via a skinny majority indicated electrical scooter sharing shouldn’t be allowed within the metropolis.
“I worry about our downtown areas because of older people and scooters swinging in and out around people,” Councilmember Ann O’Brien Keighran stated. “I think there’s just too many accidents with that, many people don’t follow the laws.”
Councilmember Donna Colson and Vice Mayor Michael Brownrigg shared the priority, nevertheless, Brownrigg indicated he can be open to reevaluating his stance relying on the success of a bike program.
The council can even be confronted with whether or not the brand new program ought to use a “docked” or “dockless” strategy. While Lime’s bikes had been dockless, that means they might be left on sidewalks or different public areas, a majority of councilmembers stated a brand new program ought to most likely incorporate designated areas for bikes to be parked.
Brownrigg, nevertheless, stated that relying on the place designated parking areas had been situated, the requirement might render the service much less in style. He stated that whereas the dockless functionality of the Lime bikes had irritated some residents who had pointed to blocked sidewalks, it additionally made the bikes extra sensible for individuals utilizing them to get house or to a vacation spot that would in any other case not be close to a chosen parking space.
“My impression is, unlike larger cities where people have a large downtown and they might go from one end to another, a lot of our users were last mile users, or first mile users,” he stated, alluding to these utilizing the bikes together with public transit.
Beach, who together with Mayor Ricardo Ortiz voiced assist for scooters, stated that in response to security issues, town might set up geo-fenced areas by which bikes or scooters can be rendered inoperable.
“We could geo-fence and eliminate the ability to ride a scooter anywhere on Burlingame Avenue or anywhere on Broadway,” she stated, including additionally that these below 18 years of age had been typically prohibited from using.
Ortiz stated whereas he was within the favor of town pursuing its personal program, a regional program would make “a lot more sense.”
Michael, the sustainability coordinator, stated that whereas a regional strategy was being labored on and “maybe … will happen one day,” progress on the trouble was gradual transferring.
The final regional providing was the Bay Area Bike Share, launched by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in 2013, with service in Redwood City, Palo Alto, Mountain View, San Jose and San Francisco. The service was handed to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in 2016. Amid low ridership in some cities, the service was ultimately acquired by Lyft in 2018 and rebranded as Bay Wheels. Today the service is obtainable in Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco.
As far as different cities on the Peninsula, San Mateo in 2019 indicated it might enable a bike share operator inside the metropolis, however to date has not acquired any candidates. The metropolis fees $5,000 to submit an utility and doesn’t enable scooters.
Redwood City started in search of candidates late final yr, and has been working with Bird to bring scooters to town. Mark Muenzer, town’s Community Development and Transportation director, earlier this yr indicated town additionally has different operators, all of whom had been proposing a scooter-only program. The metropolis fees $2,000 for an utility plus 25 cents per trip.
Councilmembers didn’t talk about charges for Burlingame, however Brownrigg indicated he didn’t consider an providing ought to function a moneymaker for town.
It’s unclear what Bird’s bikes would price to lease. In San Francisco, the fee to lease Bird scooters is $1 to unlock and 39 cents per minute. The Burlingame hotel-based program, run by Unlimited Biking (an organization that focuses totally on the tourism business) gives bikes for $15 for an hour or $75 for the day.